Birmingham Book Festival: The World According to... Stuart Maconie and Caitlin Moran

As I mentioned in a previous post, for the last week I have been involved volunteering for the Birmingham Book Festival. My second event, on Tuesday 9th October, was one of the big draws of the festival, and certainly the event I was most excited about: Stuart Maconie and Caitlin Moran.

I reviewed Caitlin Moran's How To Be A Woman a while ago, and I thought it was an excellent book, hilarious and rude and feminist and brilliant. (Review here.) Stuart Maconie is one of my favourite radio presenters, and I have spent many an afternoon listening to him and Mark Radcliffe on BBC Radio 6, playing great music and engaging in some weird and wonderful conversations. I read his book Pies and Prejudice a while ago. As a result I was pretty excited to be involved in the event!

Again, my volunteer duties took up the initial portion of the evening, but once everyone had arrived and the event had started, I got to sneak in the back and watch. There was lots of conversation about growing up working class, the importance of libraries, politics, feminism, socialism, the erosion of working class pop culture in favour of kids whose parents can bankroll them being in a band... Stuart talked a bit about visiting Paul McCartney's childhood home for a documentary he's been making for the BBC for the Beatles' anniversary, and how he was overwhelmed with the idea that "this was where the world changed". As someone who is attempting to carve an academic career out of a belief in the importance of pop culture, I found this all particularly interesting: the idea that cultural revolution goes beyond pop music or television and has a much wider reach.

There were some good questions from the audience, including some discussion of women in the (media) workplace and how they were (and are) treated, which was particularly topical given this week's news about the misogynistic culture in television and radio alongside all the Savile stuff.

Even though the event was an hour and a half, I could happily have listened to both of them speak for a lot longer. If you get the chance to hear either of them speak, I highly recommend it!

Playing Favourites: Top Ten Books I've Read Since Bibliotekit Started

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and The Bookish. This week's topic is: Top Ten Favourite Books Read in the Lifetime of Your Blog. I haven't participated in a TTT for a while, so here goes!

I have only been blogging at Bibliotekit since February of this year. Picking ten books, then, was quite an easy task. Rather than go back through and see which ones I rated the highest, I’ve just picked out those that I remember as being the most enjoyable, for whatever reason.

Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour – Morgan Matson (review)

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this. I love road trip books, and this one was a lot of fun. I particularly enjoyed the maps, pictures and lists that interspersed the narrative.

The Lost Continent – Bill Bryson (review)

Another road trip, this time in real life. Back to 1989 with Bill Bryson, revisiting the America of his childhood after a lengthy expatriation in the UK. Funny and totally absorbing.

Cat Among the Pigeons – Agatha Christie (review)

I have read a few Christie novels since starting this blog, but this one is my favourite of the last few months. Murder and intrigue and scandal (oh my!) at an English boarding school, with a late appearance by Poirot to sort the whole thing out.

The Marriage Plot – Jeffrey Eugenides (review)

A long-awaited new novel from Eugenides, and one that combined one of my favourite authors with one of my favourite settings: college. Disillusioned graduates and doomed love affairs ahoy.

The Boyfriend List – E. Lockhart (review)

Not just another YA novel. I picked this up expecting a fluffy high school romance and got the wonderful and slightly neurotic Ruby Oliver, whose boy traumas are myriad and often hilarious. I am waiting (impatiently) for my library to stock the last two in the series, but TBL and the second book, The Boy Book, are both excellent.

How To Be A Woman – Caitlin Moran (review)

I haven’t laughed this hard at a book in a long time. From being a teenager in Wolverhampton battling with fashion, doleful dogs and having a crush on Aslan the lion, to being an adult dealing with bras and sexism and whether or not to get married, this was incredibly funny and very, very true. And that’s even before the chapter on what to call “down there” in front of the kids.

Touching the Void – Joe Simpson (review)

More real life, this time Joe Simpson’s account of his climb in the Peruvian Andes that saw him break his leg and his climbing partner Simon Yates cut the rope that joined the two of them, believing Joe was dead. Stark and moving.

A Storm of Swords: Blood and Gold – George R. R. Martin (review)

After the first book, perhaps my favourite of the series so far. The previous instalment (and the first half of ASOS) concentrated on the war; B&G concentrated on what came after the war, when everyone realised things hadn’t gone quite to plan.

Follow The Blue – Brigid Lowry (review)

A great coming of age YA novel focusing on Bec, who is left alone for the summer with her brother, sister and an unwanted housekeeper. It becomes a summer of juggling friends, boys, and finding herself (not to mention a lost guinea pig).

Twin Spirit – Matthew Thompson (review)

Children’s fantasy book that sees Rose transported to a galaxy of strange people and vibrant ‘sectors’, all at the behest of her dead twin sister Lily, who is eager to gain a body of her own.

Leave me your links and I'll check out your lists!

Review: How To Be A Woman, Caitlin Moran

How To Be A Woman


Caitlin Moran

Ebury, 2012 (2011)

It's a good time to be a woman: we have the vote and the Pill, and we haven't been burnt as witches since 1727. However, a few nagging questions do remain...


Why are we supposed to get Brazilians? Should we use Botox? Do men secretly hate us? And why does everyone ask you when you're going to have a baby?

You know those books that you read, and while you're reading them you want to read them out to everyone around you, including the slightly mental woman on the bus behind you? (I live in Birmingham, where there is always a slightly mental woman on the bus behind you.) This is one of those books. I laughed so hard at some points that my housemates thought I was losing my mind. I have promised to lend it to a whole host of people, with the caveat that if they hate it, they can't tell me, because I thought it was excellent and would thus be crushed if they didn't laugh every time the doleful dog makes an appearance.

The book is described as "part memoir, part rant". The chapters revolve different aspects of "being a woman" - from bras and periods to having children (or not) and getting married (or not). The first part of the book covers a lot of Moran's childhood growing up in Wolverhampton, which was possibly my favourite part, not least because the unadulterated joy of receiving your teenage library tickets (while your mental dog strangles themselves on their lead outside) is one I remember well, just like confessing to my friend behind the sofa that I was in love with Burt Ward (Moran makes a similar confession - thought not regarding Burt Ward - to her sister in the airing cupboard).

I could go on and on and on about how funny and smart this book is, and how many times I wanted to shout "YESSS!" out loud when I read a bit that made me realise there are other women out there who think an extra layer of eyeliner works as a night time look, or who question the absurdity of large (or indeed, any) weddings, or who have been asked one too many times "when" (and not "if") they're going to have children, and who have wondered about double standards and sneaky sexism and all those other pesky things. But I will stop there, and offer up two of my favourite quotes. (If I had had a highlighter and a flagrant disregard for the sanctity of the page, I would have highlighted a lot of quotes in this book, but I don't have either, so these are just two plucked at random.)

"I come from grunge, and then Britpop - scenes where you boast about how little you spent on an outfit... and taking pride in 'getting ready to go out' consists of little more than washing your face, putting on your Doc Martens/trainers, and applying black Barry M nail varnish, £1, on the bus into town." (p.198)

On finding a partner: "Speaking for all my lady friends, we all want some geeky, nerdy, polite and ridiculous mate who we can sit at home with, slagging off all the tossers, and waiting for our baked potatoes to be ready." (p.304)

I say "plucked at random", but that's pretty much my life right there.


Overall rating: 10/10


Book source: Bought from Waterstones in Birmingham.

In My Mailbox #3

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by The Story Siren, where bloggers can share the books they've received this week.


From the library:

The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han


This has been on my TBR list for a while, so I'm hoping for a good read!


Where She Went by Gayle Forman


I haven't read anything of Forman's before, and I didn't realise until I got this from the library that it follows from If I Stay, but I'm hopeful that it won't matter too much.


Bought:

Apologies for the slight blurriness!

Borkmann's Point by Håkan Nesser


A Swedish crime novel, #2 in the Inspector Van Veeteren series. Again, I haven't read the first, but this was being promoted in my local Waterstones. (For some reason, they have created a makeshift section called "Scandi" for such Scandinavian crime novels.)


How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran


Finally out in paperback, and again on promotion. I used up the rest of my book token on this, which I've been dying to read for ages!


Have you read any of these books? What's in your mailbox this week?